Jagged Alliance: back In Action

humanji

I found out today that Jagged Alliance: Back In Action has a demo, which was released today. Just finished off giving it a try and was wondering if anyone else gave it a shot?

It's not bad. It gives you only a rough idea of what the game is like, so it's difficult to compare with the originals, but I like it. The demo has one mission and a tutorial. The tutorial is pretty good and shows you the variety of things you can do. The mission, on the other hand, is horrifically difficult. I'm talking Dark Souls difficulty taken up a few notches. I'm not sure if it's all going to be like that, or if they just wanted to make the demo stick out in your mind.

The biggest change that everyone has complained about is the plan and play system. The game is real-time and them you hit space-bar to pause the game and can map out your orders and time them so that they all act in unison. It's kind of like a simpler version of Rainbow Six (the good ones, not the new ones). For the most part, it works really well. I spent ages deciding on a plan of action. The problem is that once the enemy sees you, your plan all goes to sh*t and my men all continued doing their orders, oblivious to the bullets tearing them apart. There didn't seem to be much AI for them.

The maps are also a tad annoying, in that your men are sometimes obscured by scenery and you have to manoeuvre the camera to see them, all while you're getting shot at (you could pause the game, but generally I was in a blind panic and couldn't think that quickly).

As you'd expect, the demo is just a taster, and an incredibly punishing taster. But I really quite like it. It's definitely not for everyone, but if you're tedious like me and enjoy save-die-reload strategy games, it's not that bad at all.

And if nothing else, it makes me want to play the original again.